OpEd: Migrant Caravans Are Stealing Jobs From Hardworking American Caravans

Throughout history, caravans have been an efficient means of expanding trade to the far corners of the Earth. They have protected traders from the many dangers that often accompany such grueling expeditions — dangers such as roadside bandits, harsh climates, and the difficulties of navigation.

As an experienced caravan driver, there’s nothing I appreciate more than a hard day’s travel trading silk and spices with merchants at our country’s many oases. But there is an unwritten code among us caravaners, and this migrant caravan passing through Central America to the United States has gone too far. They have broken the Caravan Code.

The migrant caravan is trying to take jobs from hardworking American caravans, and somebody needs to stop it.

Sure, a caravan might overwhelm a town’s resources from time to time, or even plunder a few of the villagers’ homes, but that’s all in the name of good old fashioned business. But now, how am I supposed to make a living saddling camels for the arduous journey across the Sonoran Desert to trade furs in Nevada when there’s hundreds of immigrants willing to do it for minimum wage?

Back in the golden days of caravanning this wouldn’t have been a problem. But already too many jobs in the caravan industry have been outsourced to trucks and planes, and us modest, salt-of-the-earth American caravan leaders need to hold the line.

So I’m calling on all American traveling merchants and other desert wanderers: don’t peddle your wares or join in any continent-spanning adventures with anything other than a 100% certified American caravan.